Most people could probably tell you the state flower of the state they live in. I live in Texas, and the state flower is the bluebonnet. I found out the other day that the flower is not the only state symbol that Texas has. For instance, the state small mammal of Texas is the armadillo, the state large mammal is the Texas longhorn. Ok, those seemed pretty straightforward. But I looked further on and here's some other interesting stuff I found. The state grass is sideoats grama. I don't even know what that is! The state dinosaur is Pleurocoelus. What the fuck, a state dinosaur!

That's not even half of the state symbols that I found, but I was looking through there and I found that there were some categories that weren't even listed. So here's my lame attempt to right this wrong. I'm going to provide the missing categories here and my suggestions for filling those categories for Texas, and possibly some other states.

The State Medieval Weapon of Texas

The state medieval weapon of Texas was actually a lot harder to decide upon than I thought it would be. The first thing that came to my mind was a claymore (big two handed sword for those of you who weren't a nerd growing up like I was and still am) because it's a HUGE sword. Then I thought, well a lance is probably bigger than a sword so maybe that should be it. Then I came to the thought of a catapult. The big bad seige weapon. You'll probably notice as we go along through this that most of my suggestions deal with size. If you don't live in Texas, then you might not have heard that everything is bigger in Texas (according to the commercials. These same commercials tell me that everything's better in a Dodge, but I have yet to see proof of that). That's the reasoning behind most of my choices.


The State Medieval Weapon of Rhode Island

Yeah, Rhode Island. Again, not as easy as you might think. I built on the reasoning for the weapon of Texas and thought of several, but in the end settled on the dirk (really small dagger). I've always seen this weapon (yes, I AM saying that like I think about this more often than I probably should) as kind of an afterthought. The blacksmith, or whoever was making weapons had some left over steel and they needed to do something with it. So, they made this tiny weapon that generally has no purpose. That's right Rhode Island! I just did it, I said that your state was an afterthought and it generally has no purpose!


The State Venereal Disease of Texas

I know what you're thinking. I thought it too. How the hell could this have not been included on the list already? I found this out and made a snap judgement. The state VD of Texas has to be the clap. I'm not afraid to admit that my reasoning was incredibly hokey. To explain, I need to break into song:

The stars are bright,
And big at night!
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Deep in the heart of Texas!

And that my friends, is four reasons why this decision is correct.


The State Black Sheep of Texas

Every state has someone that came from their state that they aren't incredibly proud of. You might think that this would be Lee Harvey Oswald, but he's from Louisiana. Maybe he's their state black sheep. You might then go further down the line and think that Jack Ruby would be a shoe in. Nope, he's from Illinois. Besides, there is one that is more vile and evil, more ruthless than these two put together. Barney the Dinosaur. Yes, Barney was born in Dallas, TX. You might wonder, as I did, wouldn't Barney be a shoe-in for the state dinosaur? What kind of world is this where Pleurocoelus beats out a dinosaur that everyone knows of?? We even know his first name, you can't say that for Pleurocoelus.

I think I can end with that. These are the new state symbols that should be included in the list. I invite you to write your state representative to ask to have these added to the list. Thank you for your consideration.